And the winner is … Telephones. Strong combination of humor and passion wins the prize, and the day. _________________________________________

What do you do when you’ve got a problem like communicating the need for renewable, efficient energy to hundreds of millions of people? Launch a contest and promote the h___ out of it online, of course.

SmartPower, a nonprofit marketing organization that promotes clean energy, used YouTube to jump start the Clean Energy Ad Challenge. Over the past several months, the SmartPower & YouTube Clean Energy Ad Challenge has helped clean energy tap into previously unknown wells of creativity and talent. "We created this project because we were confident that the creativity of the YouTube community could help clean energy become a growing part of the solution to climate change and energy independence. With almost 150 submissions, the YouTube community is helping to prove that clean energy is real," says a SmartPower spokesperson.

The judging is finished and the winner chosen. In addition to main $10,000 winner, the SmartPower judges have selected nine other finalists and the Top Ten ads were posted on the SmartPower site on June 10th. Every day since then, and running through June 18th, they’ll remove one ad each day, leading up to the "last ad standing" on June 18th! Take a look at the five ads still in the running.

There is a real variety among the Top Ten peices. I enjoy the one with the Colorado farmer who uses solar energy to power his farm.
But the winning piece is very clever, memorable, and–over all–extremely effective.